Reliance
by Aquila028
Summary: Tweek Tweak, having been a twitch his entire life, finds an unexpected solution in his meeting and befriending of Craig Tucker. As the two's friendship grows and Tweek's condition improves, the bumps along the way threaten to erase all the two have done to curb Tweek's problem.


**Note: Events that occur in episodes will appear, but with altered circumstances to fit better with the new plot.**

* * *

Twitching his eye, he glanced back and forth at the boy who laid on the bed situated next to him, preparing for the many ways that blue-capped boy might kill him. Each brief look that he took came with its own dangers, though; what if the boy caught him staring? He'd be dead for sure.

"Ooch..." the blond-haired boy groaned, rubbing his strained neck. Despite his frequent checking, Tweek hadn't caught the other boy making any move, or any movement at that. He simply laid still, staring with his uninjured eye at the pale green wall across them, only interrupted by the occasional scratch of the head or adjusting of his blue hat. Tweek refused to let his guard down nonetheless, and continued his routine of desperate head turns to prepare for the worst.

A group of voices, muffled by the walls, grew louder, and the two boys shifted their attention over to the large gray doors. As the two doors abruptly flapped open, Tweek shivered at the wave of cold air that entered with a large group of boys.

"Hey guys, how are you feeling?" asked one of the boys in the front, Stan. His question was met with a groan from both of the hospitalized boys. "Well, uh, we just came by because we have something to tell you,"

"Yeah," continued Kyle, another of the boys, "see, we got you to fight just cause we wanted to see who was the toughest. _We_ made up all that stuff we said to get you guys mad at each other." The injured blue-capped boy, Craig, flipped his middle finger up and attempted to scowl, but his face refused to cooperate and sent a cringe of pain down his neck instead.

"Yes, you can flip us off, Craig, we deserve that," apologized Cartman, in a somehwat sarcastic tone, "We just came by to apologize, we just feel so bad..."

"Sure you do, fatass," responded Craig.

"'EY Don't call me fat godamn-, er, I mean, yes we do feel very, very bad,"

"Boy, do we ever..." assured Kyle. Tweek sensed their blatant sarcasm, and glanced over at Craig. Judging from the incredulous look on his face, Tweek assumed he thought the same.

"Well, I guess we'll be going now," began Stan, "and we'll just have to live with the knowledge that you're both kinda sissies." Unresponding, the two boys stared as the group of kids began to leave. Turning back around, Stan looked back at the two injured boys, "Uh, aren't you gonna say something? I just called you both sissies."

"No," replied Craig flatly.

"Well I guess you guys don't wanna know what your parents said on the news earlier..."

"Fuck off," interrupted Craig, flipping his middle finger back up.

"Fine, whatever," mumbled Stan as he turned back ground and left, "assholes." As the doors closed behind them, the two boys laid silent for a moment, before Tweek spoke up.

"W-what jerks,"

"Yeah."

Before they could say any more, the two doors flapped open again, and a hospital employee rolled in a cart with two plastic food trays atop. The discoloured mixture that sat in the bowls could probably be defined as some sort of soup with square salted crackers resting beside in little packages.

"Lunch time boys, did you enjoy your little visit?" Both frowned and stayed silent. "You two boys should make up soon, I'm sure you'll recover faster that way!"

"We're not friends," replied Craig dully.

"Well, then you two have plenty of time to become friends. You'll be stuck together for the next few days, anyways." Placing the two trays on a drawer in between the boys, the employee turned and left. Tweek shuddered at the thought of trying to make a new friend, especially with someone he'd just fought near to death with.

"Ugh, hospital food's fucking disgusting," muttered Craig as he sat up and poked his spoon around the chunky brown liquid in his bowl. Deciding against eating the slimy "soup", Craig tore open his package of crackers, munching on the squares, leaking a trickle of crumbs onto his bed. Tweek cringed at each snap as Craig bit off piece after piece, the sporadic cracks seeming to get faster and louder and-

"You gonna eat those?" asked Craig suddenly, pointing to Tweek's tray.

"AGH! No! Don't eat them! Please, no more!" yelled back Tweek, swiping the crackers off his tray.

"Dude, what's your problem?"

"Agh!"

"Weirdo." Lying back down, Craig turned over and shut his eyes; afternoon naps weren't a common luxury thanks to the untimely hours of school. Craig, however, quickly discovered the difficulty of trying to sleep next to someone twitching and partly screaming every half-second. Pulling down his hat and burying his face in a pillow failed to help much either.

"Ugh, can you shut up for one second?"

"Agh! I can't!"

"Why the hell not?"

"B-because everything! What if you try to kill me? Wh-what if-"

"Why would I try to kill you."

"I dunno! It's just, we were just fighting, and-!"

"I can barely move, dude." Despite the _thrilling_ conversation he was having, Craig was rapidly losing interest, "Whatever. Just try to stay quiet."

"I haven't had any coffee for a while, so I'm really on edge!"

"You drink coffee, seriously? That's the fucking worst idea I've ever heard. No wonder you can't stop twitching."

"My parents said it would help me stop worrying about everything,"

"Dude, your parents are idiots. Talk to a counselor or something, I dunno,"

"I-I've tried, but I can't talk to anybody about it. I get super nervous and can't say anything!"

"You're telling me about it right now."

And he was. Tweek strangley didn't feel as nervous as he would've been around anyone else; he actually felt a bit more at ease talking about it.

"Y-yeah, you're right, I am."

"Problem solved. Now shut up."

"Agh! But I still feel twitchy!" Given the opportunity at last to vent, Tweek began to unleash the cascade of things that plagued his mind, while Craig half-heartedly listened: school, terrorists, sixth graders, there wasn't one thing it seemed that Tweek wasn't stressing over.

"And my hamster! Wh-what if my mom forgets to feed my hamster! Wh-what if-"

"Wait, you take care of a hamster? _You?_ "

"Y-yeah, he's my best friend."

"Mine is too. His name is Stripes. I watch Red Racer with him."

"O-oh, cool. What's Red Racer?"

"You haven't seen it? It's fucking awesome dude, you should watch it."

"M-my dad doesn't let me watch TV..."

"Maybe you can come over and watch with me then or something,"

"R-really? I-I've never been to anyone's house before,"

"I haven't ever had anyone over before. But yeah, dude, Red Racer's sweet..."

A good half hour passed, and the same employee walked by. Peeking in, she was surprised to find the two boys chatting and smiling. Deciding to leave the two alone for a little while longer, she moved on to the next room to take away the likely uneaten trays of "soup".


End file.
